Facebook and Instagram Shops: Now on Shopify to Grow Your Small Business

4 min readJun 4, 2021

Try to understate social media’s role in online retail. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

See, you can’t do it.

The truth is, social media plays a massive role in consumer behavior online, and it’s changing the way people shop. Over 19 billion in sales occurred last year through social media.

So, what’s this mean for you, oh, intrepid Shopify merchant? It means you want to start leveraging the power of social media to sell your products. Enter Facebook and Instagram Shops, now on Shopify.

What are Facebook and Instagram Shops?

If you aren’t already aware, Facebook and Instagram Shops, or Shops for short, is a program that allows small businesses to sell their offerings across Facebook’s family of apps, including Instagram.

Shops was launched back in May 2020. The new eCommerce feature offered small business owners an excellent opportunity to get their products in front of a bigger social media audience.

With Shops, business owners could build a shop and product catalog directly in their Facebook pages or Instagram profiles. But there were some issues with Shops and established Shopify merchants.

Mainly, Shops 1.0 payment gateways were clunky and added unnecessary friction to the buying process.

But not anymore. Shops 2.0 is new and improved and ready to help grow your Shopify business.

Here’s how.

Facebook and Instagram Shops can increase your conversions.

Facebook and Instagram Shops have recently added Shopify as a payment option. People who are much more talented with numbers than me estimate that using Shops for your Shopify store could increase conversions by 1.72X. For mobile, it’s even higher — 1.91X.

Now, you can offer Shop Pay as a checkout option for your customers. It’s so much faster and easier for people to check out and buy from your Shopify store, all within any Facebook family app.

Offers a smoother shopping experience for social media customers
Helps your reach more customers online
Promotes products directly to your followers without spending a dime
Provides a complete in-app shopping experience
Syncs product inventory across all channels when you sell through Shopify

Shop Pay reduces friction because it pre-populates customer info, like billing and shipping information, after the first-time purchase.

The closer you can get to one-click buy, the better your conversion rates.

Can you connect Facebook and Instagram Shops in Shopify?

Shops offers various apps and integrations for Shopify merchants who want to reach a larger social media audience.

You can connect all your inventory, marketing, sales, and customer info into a central database with Shops. Any ad campaigns you run through Shopify, and your product catalog, stay within Shopify but seamlessly sync with Shops.

It’s pretty easy to get started. The first thing you’ll need is a Facebook Business Page and a Professional Account for Instagram.

Converting your Insta profile into a Professional Account is relatively straightforward:

Open the Insta app and go to your profile
Click the ☰ icon
Open Settings
Click Account > Switch to Professional Account
Pick a business category
Confirm details
Connect to your Facebook Business Page

This page from Shopify will give you more information on adding your product catalog to Facebook and Instagram.

Be aware, it can take up to 48 hours for Facebook to approve your product catalog when connecting Instagram Shopping to the Facebook sales channel.

How do I enable Shop Pay?

Once you’re set up with Shops, you’ll want to enable Shop Pay. It’s pretty straightforward:

Yes, it really is that easy. Your customers can now enjoy Shop Pay as a fast, convenient checkout option with a few clicks. Customers can find any tagged product in the Facebook app family and put it in their carts.

When they head to checkout, they can use Shop Pay as their preferred payment option. Shop Pay will pre-populate the checkout page with their billing and shipping info for any subsequent purchases they make in the app.

Facebook and Instagram Shops for Shopify: Key Takeaways

There are over 1 billion users on Facebook and Instagram. Getting your offerings in front of a larger audience will help grow your eCommerce business.

With Shops and the new Shop Pay feature for Shopify, it’s now easier than ever to reach more customers through social media. A more convenient, seamless checkout process will improve the customer experience and help you generate recurring revenue.
Too busy to integrate Shops with Shopify? Or not so technologically inclined? That’s what we’re here for. Reach out to us today, and let’s level up your Shopify store.

Originally published at https://www.cartlyfts.com on June 4, 2021.